Page 29 of Crowned For The King's Secret

‘They all loved me; I was their future ruler.’

‘That’s not what I mean. That picture. It’s not the sort of thing I found on the internet in my research about Santa Fiorina about your parents. So why do you have it? Who gave it to you?’

‘It doesn’t matter who gave it to me. All that matters is that it was a reminder.’

It was his godfather. His father’s best friend. Tossed it before him as a raging teenager, to remind him of what they were all fighting for. After seeing that photograph, he’d fought for his parents every day since, without question or complaint.

‘How could they do something like that?’

‘They loved me, they wanted me safe. Wanted to make sure I took no risks, that I knew the enemy I faced and how evil they were.’

Victoria’s eyes narrowed, her lips a thin line. ‘I’m questioning who the evil ones are here.’

‘They did it out of love.’

She shook her head slowly, pressed her hand to her heart. ‘Oh, Sandro. Can’t you see? I know all about control being wrapped up in the illusion of love. I’ve lived it. What was done to you was abuse.’

‘Never, they—’

‘So, if anything happened to you or me it would be fine for the people who were tasked to protect Nic to do this? Not to find a picture of us as living and loving humans so he could remember us like that for ever, but a photo of us destroyed, that would likely destroy him too? That’s okay with you? As a father?’

He pushed his chair back with a scrape but his legs seemed weak. They wouldn’t allow him to stand. ‘No!’

That’s not what it was like. He was here, he was alive because of the tireless efforts of many people over the years, who deserved his thanks, not his disapprobation. Yet why couldn’t he get enough air, as if he’d run some terrible race? Why did it feel as if the whole of him was being crushed under a weight so heavy he might never survive it?

Victoria left her own chair and moved to stand in front of him.

‘Then why was it okay to have it happen to you?’

It was as if something in him broke.

‘That’s different.’ His voice was hoarse, the words difficult to get out.

She cupped his cheek with her cool, soft hand, the tenderness and care on her face almost cutting him off at the knees. It was the same way he saw her look at Nic.

‘I’d like you to explain to me how. I’d like to know who cared for the terrified little boy who was torn away from his parents and taken to a foreign country. Who truly loved him, protected him the way they would have wanted? Not as a future ruler but as a child. Tell me, Sandro. Who gave that little boy who’d losteverythinga hug?’

His skin was feverish under her palms. She looked into his eyes and saw the pain there because she’d seen it reflected in her own in the mirror too many times, and some days still did. He might have survived the ordeal, but did he truly thrive?Allowedto do things? As a child maybe, but as an adult, had anyone ever asked him what he wanted? She’d bet the answer was no.

Her heart broke for the little boy he’d been, the one who’d needed someone to love him the way a caring parent would. Not just teach him about duty and taking back the throne, as commendable as those things were, but allowing him to be a child who could grieve. No wonder he looked exhausted now. She knew how hard it was not to have somewhere soft to land in the place you called your home. She’d lived like that for most of her adult life, particularly in her marriage. A wash of tenderness flooded over her, the emotion filling all the cracks. This complex man was getting to her and she couldn’t help herself, so she didn’t try to.

‘I’m here,’ she murmured as she dropped her lips to his because he needed so much. ‘I’ll give you what you need.’

Their lips brushed and he didn’t move apart from the cool rush of his sharp inhale. She hadn’t known what to expect, but she had so much emotion to spare she could fill him with it. Try to bring back the tender man she’d witnessed that night back at the club. The man she knew he could be because he transformed around their son.

‘I’m sorry,’ he murmured against her lips.

Then he groaned, a guttural, pained sound, and thrust his hands into her hair, surging forward, standing and hauling her to him. He overtook her completely. Consuming her. She gave right back to him. Their mouths fused together, teeth clashing as if they were warring with one another. The glory of it. Heat roared over her. A tearing kind of passion that threatened to rip her apart. There was no gentleness here in this moment, and she knew without question that he needed it. That she did too.

She poured her pain and anger into the kiss as he tightened his arms round her, all of him hard and uncompromising, aroused, as she ground into his erection. He dropped one arm to her waist. Another held the back of her head as if he was afraid she’d try to escape, but there was no running from this. The storm of it. She craved to be whipped away into the turmoil of sensation flooding her. She thrust her own hands into his hair and raked her fingernails through it, a moment so heady it was as if she’d lost all common sense.

He pulled his lips from hers, both of them panting. Vic gave a tremulous laugh. ‘This is probably a mistake.’

The look he gave her could have cut her off at the knees. Pure, undiluted desire. ‘I don’t care, do you?’

She didn’t. Not one bit. She shook her head.

He picked her up then, no gentle swinging into his arms. This was an abduction. She didn’t care. She craved him in a way that didn’t make any sense. She wanted this wildness, this barely controlled passion, to take all of him for her own because this cool, controlled man had lost the last vestige of control to her. The sense of her power overwhelmed her as he stormed through the suite, the only knowledge of where they might be because rooms changed from light to dark to light again as their mouths were fused. She hardly knew where they were going.

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